The small post that I did last week on "Liz" Becton's strange email exchange with a woman working for a lobbying firm drew far more attention than I expected.  (I think — and said — that the exchange was entertaining.  I didn't mention any great political lessons from the exchange, because I didn't see any.)

But one small point did occur to me, after reading 90(!) comments on this small story.  Becton has had a long career working as a congressional staffer, and this was the first time that I had heard of her.  If she had had similar exchanges in the past, they escaped me.  And were not mentioned in the Politico story.

That leads me to this very tentative conclusion:  Elizabeth Becton may be, fundamentally, a decent person in a bad environment, Jim McDermott's office.  Possibly, working for McDermott is so miserable that a decent woman finally lost her cool.  Possibly.

The Becton story doesn't seem worth anyone's further time.  But the possibility that Congressman McDermott has a miserable office might be.  I am not in his district, so I don't plan to pursue it.  We have so many aggressive journalists in this area that I suspect that some are working on this already.  (For instance, Danny Westneat, who never lets the "D" after a politician's name deter him from aggressive investigations.)  But in case our local journalists fail to follow up this story, some of you — especially if you live in McDermott's district — may want to do your own investigation.  And if you do, and it looks reasonable, I would be glad to publish it here as a guest post.